Tag Archives: The News

FERNANDO CASSIA of the Argentinian yard points me to Daily Tech where I discover that not only am I being libelled, but my own pictures are being published too.

The page is here. The photograph of me was taken in Oxford Jail – now a tourist attraction rather than a clink. The IT Examiner and The News weren’t set up to take advantage of cheap journalistic labour. You can get cheap journalism anywhere, even in America it seems.

It’s readers that newspapers should always keep in mind, of course, and experienced journalists will produce copy and headlines that catch the eye, and taste good too.

Unfortunately, too many publishers think of their journalists as data gatherers, which is why so many journalists are being laid off all around the world, in a bid to reduce costs.

Online journalism is like any other journalism, Mr Schmidt. The overheads are much smaller than those of print journalism, but readers want hard hitting stuff, not regurgitated pap and crap. The Journal article is here – you will need a subscription. ♦

I’M SORRY to say the great Indian experiment is over. Metaplume, the BVI company, has written to me and the other freelancers as well as the Indian staff to say that because of the economic climate, we’re all terminated.

NICE PIECE on the Examiner today – yeah, I’m biased – about solar panels from Subhankar Kundu. The semiconductor companies are cheesed off with the Indian government not helping them enough.

We had a chat about this. A fab costs $2 billion at least to build. Orders are falling, falling, falling. This is the first time the clearly cyclical semi business has experienced this. TSMC is at 40% capacity. So will the fabs shift to producing polysilicon for the solar panel business? It’s not so easy. All it will take is for photovoltaic panels to become cheap and the famous Moore’s Law will kick in. And countries like India which have heaps of sun will benefit.

But today we went out and saw the labourers playing a game, so we felt compelled to ask Subhash, who works in Bangalore, for The News and the IT Examiner, what the heck was going on.

They, he said, are playing a board game, similar to chess, although the name of the game they were playing escaped him.

There are three things to note in these two photos. First, the ingenious use of wood instead of metal scaffolding. Secondly, the car in the broader picture appears to be a Reva (pronounced Raver), an electric car which appears to be Subhash’s car. Thirdly, the strategy involved in this game of chess. Chess, as everyone knows, was invented in India. ♥